


Send me away with the words of a love song

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:29:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Matt saying goodbye to Karen as she dies</p>
            </blockquote>





	Send me away with the words of a love song

Karen comes home in June, and Matt’s absolutely ecstatic. 

The thing is though, as they’re driving from Heathrow to Matt’s flat, she stares out the window sullenly. 

“Kaz,” he says, “what’s up?” 

“I have cancer.”

Everything stops for him at that moment, and if he wasn’t driving on the highway he’d have probably stopped and pulled over. 

“What?” 

“I know,” she says, eyes focused straight ahead. “It’s bad, Matt. Even with chemotherapy and all that stuff, they don’t think that I have long.” 

“Jesus Christ, Kaz.” 

“I know.” 

* * *

She goes up to Inverness, because she wants to be with her family. Matt goes up to see her every weekend, and whenever he’s got breaks from filming. It turns out that they can’t operate on the tumour that’s taken up residence on her pancreas. The doctors say that they’ll try chemo. They’re not optimistic. 

The treatments take a lot from Karen, and every time Matt sees her it’s like she’s fading away, bit by terrible bit. Her ginger hair goes first, which is hard for Matt to watch, and she gets emaciated, because she can’t hold down food, and breathless, and just pitiful.

The news from the PET scan that they take after the first round is complete isn’t just neutral - it’s flat out bad. It’s going to her lungs, and her heart, and her bones, and the medicine that’s supposed to help her is just making her sicker and sicker. 

He comes up one weekend, and she’s not at the hospital, she’s just at home. 

“Matt,” she says, “I’m stopping treatment.” 

He nods, and wipes his eyes. “That’s probably the best choice.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t need to apologise to anyone, Kazza.” 

* * *

Her decline after that decision is quick - so fast that she doesn’t even have time to get a full head of hair to grow back. 

He gets a call midway through the week when he’s filming in Cardiff, and it’s from Karen’s mom. She tells him that Karen doesn’t have long, because her lungs are filling with fluid, and that he’d better come up to Inverness. 

Steven tells him to go without Matt even having to ask why he needs to leave so suddenly. 

The train ride to Inverness feels longer than it ever has, and Matt runs to the hospital from the train station.

When he gets there, Karen’s mom shows him to the room in the palliative care ward (read: you don’t leave here unless it’s in a coffin). She’s lying on the bed, bone-thin and with all the light gone out of her eyes. It physically hurts Matt to see it. 

“Hey Kaz,” he says, sitting down beside her bed. Now, he needs to be strong, because he can see that she’s fading, and she’s fading fast, and as badly as he wants to cry he’s not letting himself right now. He gently wraps his fingers in one of the hands that someone’s rested on top of her chest. She turns her head towards him and opens her eyes a little bit. 

“Oh, Moonface.” 

He has to stop himself again, because he feels the tears welling up. He swallows them. 

“It’s going to be okay, okay? You’re going to be fine. You’re going somewhere better, and you don’t need to be afraid, okay? So whenever you feel ready, just let go.” 

He runs one of his thumbs across her forehead, and another breath rattles her ribcage. 

“I’m never going to forget you, Kaz. We had the best of times together, you know? We had all of those amazing days together filming, and watching crap telly, and eating takeaway on the floor in your living room, and dancing on the beach in Spain, and I’m going to hold those memories near and dear to my heart forever. I love, you Karen, I love you so, so much, and I’m not going to get to spend the rest of my life with you, which really makes me regret a lot of things that I’ve done and decisions that I made. But you’re going to be free soon Kaz, away from everything that’s ever hurt you, and that’s the greatest thing, I guess. So just remember that I love you, everyone here loves you, and we’ll all miss you so much. I’ll miss you so much.” 

Her eyes close then, and he has this funny feeling she’s not going to open them again. He kisses her forehead. 

* * *

He doesn’t leave her side for the rest of the night, and eventually he falls asleep to the sound of Karen’s shaky breaths. He wakes up with the dawn a few hours later, and she’s not breathing any more. 

For the first time since he got up to Inverness he cries, big, ugly, racking sobs, and her parents and some nurses all come in, and her mum leans her head on her dad’s shoulder and there are tears all around. 

He stays at her house, and helps her parents clean out her things and get whatever’s left of her effects back from Los Angeles. The hollow in his chest rattles every time he touches anything - a piece of clothing, a photograph, some other kind of personal possession - that might have something that they shared attached to it. 

He goes through the funeral in a state of shock, because in all of her illness he’d never actually contemplated what would happen when Karen died, which was an awfully stupid thing for him not to contemplate.

They scatter her ashes on Loch Ness, because she never lost her Scottishness, and it only made sense for her to return to her roots. 

He keeps a lot of the pictures of him and Karen that he finds around her parents’ house, and one old jumper of his from university that she’d pretty much adopted as her own. At this point, he just needs to get out of Inverness, because everything makes him think of Karen and that’s bad right now. 

Her mom drives him to the train station, and before he gets out of the car, she hands him an envelope. 

“She wanted you to get this, and says sorry that she didn’t say what’s in here earlier.” 

“Oh.” Matt says, trying his damndest to keep a lid on his emotions. “Thanks.” He hugs her quickly and gets out of the car. 

The letter sits in his bag like a thousand pound weight until he gets back to London, and he finally sits down with a cup of tea and cracks open the envelope. 

 _Dear Matt,_ the letter inside reads, 

_I haven’t got much time left, and I don’t think that I’m going to have the strength to write this letter for much longer. I mean, you’ve seen me. You know I’ve been fading. I haven’t said thank you for how much you’ve been supporting me, so I’ll say it now because you have been my rock and my anchor and I don’t know what I would do without you._

_I haven’t been able to find the words, or the courage, or whatever you need to say important things to important people when it matters, but know this Matt: I love you. Like, really, really, truly madly deeply love you. We’re not going to get a chance to say that to each other (and that assumes you feel the same way, and I’m not going to find that out) and while it’s unfortunate to the extreme, it’s how life works sometimes, and you can’t fight it. I guess this is the lesson - love and live deeply and without fear._

_We have gone through so much together, and you’ve seen me at my best and worst and I know I’ve seen you in all those places too. I’ve had so many of the best memories of my life with you, Matt, and I’m pretty sure you’d feel the same way. But do something for me - mourn for a time, but then go on. I know you’ll keep me close to your heart because that’s what you do. But don’t stop, Matt. Keep moving forward and live your life. I’ll always be watching over your shoulder._

_Love you, stupid face._

_Karen_


End file.
